Final phase after delayed Steele

Raising a neighborhood after razing a blight in Lowell

LOWELL -- Two decades ago, Lowell decided an infamous housing development that was meant to be temporary for returning World War II veterans had outlived its useful life.

The Julian D. Steele project was a blight on South Lowell and a source of crime, cited for its high rates of high-school dropouts and teenage pregnancies. Its 42 drab buildings and 210 housing units had become so bad that many Housing Authority residents would refuse to live there.

"They were awful. They were real bad," said Jim Milinazzo, who as head of the Lowell Housing Authority at the time lead the controversial plan. "It was time to think outside the box."

The complex, also known as Shaughnessy Terrace for the main street that ran through it, was cleared out in 2002 and demolished the next year, seven years after a controversial demolition was unveiled.

It would be a decade from when plans were first unveiled before Julian Steele's replacement would finally open.

Now, that new development, River's Edge, is hitting a milestone by beginning its final phase, taking place closest to the Concord River. At the same time, work has recently begun on an adjacent residential development at the former 1400 Motors site.

Together, the two projects are remaking a stretch of South Lowell that was once in the shadow of a housing project that city officials were eager to see erased.

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They represent a limited supply of new-construction housing available in the city.

"Our goal was to create a new neighborhood, and I think we did," said Dennis Conners, the River's Edge project manager.

'We all know each other'

Wilma Riveira has experienced the transformation first-hand.

The school paraprofessional lived at Julian Steele but was bothered enough by violence, noise and deteriorating conditions that she stayed for only a year. But since 2008, she's a resident again, this time a homeowner with a fenced-in backyard that includes a patio, pool and trampoline for her 7-year-old granddaughter.

"I like it. It's quiet," she said as she sat on her front porch on a muggy day last week. "Everybody's good," she said of her neighbors. "We all know each other."

Those are words no one would likely have used for Julian Steele. Rafael Salas, like Riveira, also lives only several hundred feet from his old home as a child in Julian Steele.

Salas, 27, was young enough to remember mostly good memories of being around other children the same age. But he has also heard plenty of stories about the old project and recalled the poor condition of the buildings. It didn't stop him from moving in with his girlfriend who bought a home there.

"It's quieter now, less traffic," he said while going for a walk around the neighborhood.

Two people who got to enjoy River's Edge as children, Lucas Silveira, 22, and Vanessa Silveira, 13, both had only positive things to say. They've lived in the neighborhood for eight years with their parents, Solange and Paulo.

"It's great living here," Lucas said. "It's really nice."

Off to a rough start

River's Edge -- which was first called "Reinvention of Julian D. Steele" in planning documents and later Concord Meadows -- got off to a rough start. First, it ran into construction problems, including inaccurate blueprints and builders who pulled out of the project after saying building would be unfeasible.

It then opened just as the great recession hit. The development was originally given an aggressive completion date of 2007, but will end up at least a decade late.

But at a cost of more than $30 million, River's Edge has already changed its section of South Lowell, adding a cluster of Colonial-style homes that each has a small yard and driveway. Residents now own their units instead of renting, giving them a greater stake in the neighborhood.

Many of the original street names, which got their name from those killed in World War II, remain, including Ecklund Drive, Murray Lane and Nelson Avenue -- though there's no longer a Shaughnessy Terrace, the name some in the city assigned to the entire project. But other than that, the site bears virtually no resemblance to the old development.

It is now a mix of single-family and duplex homes, and it looks far more like a neighborhood, with picket fences, basketball hoops, swing sets and other children's toys scattered around yards.

In sharp contrast from the past, it is now a distinctly middle-class neighborhood, with many young families. All units have affordability restrictions so that any owner is not making more than 120 percent of the area median income. Single-family, three-bedroom homes go for $264,900 and duplexes for $319,000.

"Homeownership is a completely different animal," builder Kevin O'Brien said, comparing it to rentals at Julian Steele. "When you own it, you take care of it."

Land was recently cleared for the final phase of development -- 26 units on 16 lots -- with construction expected to begin next year. Though it will end up taking more than a decade for the development to be complete, those overseeing the project say it's been a success.

"I believe in this place, I really do," said O'Brien, who financed part of the project himself. "It's a great concept."

Next door, at the former 1400 Motors dealership, 47 new market-rate housing units are being built on a 3-acre site that sat vacant for several years. All but one unit will be built in a three-story townhouse, with the final unit a single-family house.

The new development, called Mill City Crossing, will sell two-bedroom units for between $289,000 and $299,000.

Change is never easy

Getting to the transformed southern stretch of Gorham Street was never easy.

Officials had to fight the state in convincing those outside Lowell that displacing about 1,000 residents was in their best interest. Opponents, which included the Archdiocese of Boston, said none of the residents would be able to afford to live in the new development, and that remaking the property could have been a way to push them out of the city.

Plans for the demolition led to lawsuits that lasted long past construction started on River's Edge. The demolition ultimately required the signature of the governor.

In a detailed story on the proposal in 1998, The Wall Street Journal called it the state's first plan to demolish a major public housing project without building new housing for those being displaced.

Julian Steele was a unique case because it was considered such a poor fit for residents and a source of trouble for police. Officials saw it as a chance to break a multigenerational cycle among tenants by finding better environments for them.

"It was definitely an area that required a lot of law enforcement attention," said Police Superintendent William Taylor, who spent much of his career in the city as a narcotics detective.

Taylor called River's Edge "tranquil," but said Julian Steele was bad enough that at times, police would send multiple units into the development at once for extra precaution.

For a while, the development took on a ghost-town like feel. Some residents already moved out, others remained, and housing officials didn't want to move in new residents if they were going to be there for only a short time.

Tom Collins, an associate director with the Lowell Housing Authority, ended up becoming a full-time project manager for the site during the demolition planning.

"We were dealing with housing stock that was 50 years old, and it was not intended to last that long," Collins said. "It wasn't a popular thing to do," he said of the demolition plans.

The state ended up covering much of the demolition cost and pitched in toward building River's Edge.

"It's been a successful project," said Milinazzo, who served as housing authority executive director until 2002. He's now a Lowell city councilor and leads the Revere Housing Authority.

Looking back, he said, the project was worth it. "It's amazing that everybody -- and I mean everybody -- hung in over 18 years," he said. "And we were able to deliver."

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